White Dwarf 157

This issue marks a definite break from the previous ones. A transition point on a journey, albeit a fuzzily defined one. The cover image was also used at the front cover of the first Orc and Goblin army book, which says something about the direction of travel.


I should emphasise that I have no knowledge of what was actually going in Games Workshop studio at the time these issues were produced, but my sense is that when I first started out collecting, miniatures were being produced and rules written without a clear sense of how they would be distributed. A number of experimental rules articles found their way into White Dwarf without much of a sense of where they ultimately belonged. At its most extreme, this lead to a compilation of White Dwarf articles being the official source for most Warhammer 40,000 army lists. Even when books were planned, for example Realms of Chaos or the Warhammer 40,000 Ork books, they often read more like a collection of articles than a single, coherent work.

By White Dwarf 157, this had started to change. Games Workshop started producing complete, coherent rules supplements with all the rules needed for a particular army. This often meant producing rules for models not yet released. This transition was a staggered process that actually began with second edition Epic released at the same time as White Dwarf 141. These supplements were boxes rather than books and covered two armies each, but they were the first attempt at a coherent set of army list supplements, where every supplement was in the same format. Warhammer 4th edition followed in White Dwarf 153 and Warhammer 40,000 2nd edition in White Dwarf 166. To me, this transition marks the beginning of modern Games Workshop, though there were still a great number to come.

I have written about the subject of rules distribution before and regard this increased coherence as generally a good thing, but there were definite drawbacks. One was the change in White Dwarf. New rules articles had been its bread and butter. As the army book started to appear, White Dwarf shifted from printing new and experimental rules to reprinting pages from just released or soon to be released army books.

The transition is very marked in White Dwarf 157, which, remarkably, has only four substantial articles, though this is probably because two of them take up over twenty pages each. The first of these big articles is the new Space Wolf army list for Warhammer 40,000 first edition. In many respects, this feels very much like a WD article of old. Lots of experimental new material, with no sense of where it would ultimately end up. It is also notable that the army card concept we saw in White Dwarf 145 had already been abandoned. Despite the article's retro feel, it was probably released because the Space Wolves were being developed for 2nd edition WD only nine months away.

The article itself is interesting read, but mostly because most of the key elements of the current Space Wolf army are already present - Blood Claws, Grey Hunters, Long Fangs and Wolf Guard are all familiar to modern players. It shows how strong a concept the Space Wolf army was.

The second article stands in stark contrast. The Grand Theogonist rules were reprinted straight from the Empire army book, enlivened only by illustrations of the new model. While it might have inspired a few new players, the article is of little real value as anyone likely to use it would need or already own the army book.

Following this is an 'Eavy Metal article on painting the Grand Theogonist and other models shown this issue. 'Eavy Metal was also changing. In previous issues it had shown models from the team's personal collections, whatever they were working on, or the works of other talented painters. But now it had become a showcase for newly released models.

The final article is yet another break with tradition. My first encounter, in this series, with a battle report. They had appeared sporadically before, the first (I believe) was in White Dwarf 107, but from 153 they became a regular feature. This sort of article made ideal White Dwarf content. Highly visual, it provides a good introduction to new players, a good showcase of armies and tactics for more experienced players and potentially ideas for players own game. Also, although Games Workshop printed a few compilation books and put some in army books, they really work better as magazine content. With rules becoming less important this article was a good way to fill twenty pages.
This report saw the Empire vs the Greenskins and highlights some new models. It also showed that the new spirit of organised professionalism hadn't quite reached army production as the Greenskins had only one unit of Orcs, despite featuring an Orc Warlord, and is made up mostly of Goblins, some in some not very viable units - there are only 5 netters and clubbers for instance. Meanwhile, the Empire fields two units of Knights, the new War Altar and a War Wagon.

This Battle Report is notable for another reason: the apparently accidental creation of a special character. Games Workshop had just released an Orc Shaman on a War Wyvern, but this was not a very valuable model tactically as Orc Shamans had to stay close to Orc units to benefit from their special rules. As a way round this problem, the model is recast as an Orc Warlord and equipped with the Crown of Sorcery, then a generic magic item making its user a level 3 Wizard. The idea stuck and Azhag has been a special character ever since. This in spite of a not very impressive performance in this battle. He got himself killed in turn 2 charging into the smaller of the two Imperial Knight units unsupported.

The rest of the battle manages to be reasonably interesting, as the Goblins put up a surprisingly good fight, putting a good part of the Empire army to flight. But in the end they get bogged down in unwinnable combats. The Empire general, then White Dwarf editor Robin Dews, concedes in his notes that he won mostly by look, though the limited choices available to Jervis Johnson, as the Orc General must have played a part.

So, very much an issue that marks a change from what went before. The magazine is glossier, with far more colour pages and more professional produced. But also seems to have less useful content than before.

Random Factors

There has been a lot of discussion, much of it highly critical, about Games Workshop's new game, Dreadfleet. The bulk of the criticism seems to have been focused on the extent to which the game is dominated by random factors, leaving the outcome of the game too dependent on the roll of a dice. I don't want to get into the Dreadfleet debate at the moment as I haven't played it yet, but the discussion did get me thinking about randomness in gaming.

There currently exists a theoretical dividing line between looser, friendlier, 'beer and pretzels' rules and more competitive games. The latter being considered a genuine contest of skill with rigorous rules and less scope for randomness to play a part. The odd thing is, that if you want to design a contest of skill you probably couldn't find a worse field of human endeavor to base it on than warfare.

Lets take a look at one significant example, the Battle of Sekigahara, the largest Samurai battle in history which saw over 160,000 men take the field. On one side was Tokugawa Ieyasu, future founder of the Tokugawa Shogunate that would rule Japan for 200 years. On the other, Ishida Mitsunari, loyal defender of the Toyetomi family, that of the Toyetomi Hideyoshi previous ruler of Japan, Toyetomi Hideyoshi and his young son Hideyori. At stake, nothing less than the future of the country.

Despite the stakes and the historical impact that echoed down the centuries to this day (For example, Tokyo only became the capital of Japan because of this battle) very little hinged on military tactics on the the day. Mitsunari had the slightly stronger position on the high ground, but what swung the battle in Ieyasu's favour was that a good proportion of Mitsunari's army refused to move when ordered or actively switched sides. A lot of this had to do with Mitsunari's personality, he was disliked and distrusted by his own side and had insulted several high ranking supporters, and much due to Ieyasu's political maneuvering before hand, but in the end the battle was decided by events outside of the field.

The point illustrated by this battle, is that so much of the outcome on the day is beyond the General's control, at least once they take to the field. Sekigahara is a nightmare to recreate as a wargame because the betrayals either have to be predictable, in which case the Mitsunari player is at a disadvantage but is able to plan for the betrayals in a way that the historical Mitsunari could not, or the betrayals are determined randomly, in which case the outcome is largely out of the control of the players. Sekigahara is a particularly good example of the outcome of a battle being determined by chance, but it is scarcely unique.

A while back, I read a post on a message board in which a gamer complained about the the command and control rules in Black Powder. The crux of the complaint was that real General's don't roll dice to determine if their orders will be carried out. The point missed was that these rules simulate, in an abstract way, the extent to which a general's orders can be lost, misunderstood or simply not followed. There are abundant examples. The Charge of the Light Brigade is probably the most famous example of orders being misinterpreted. Another, less well known example is Agincourt. Although remembered as the famous defeat of the flower of French chivalry by English Archers, what is less well known is that the French general could see it coming. Unfortunately for him, as he had born a commoner elevated to his rank by skill rather than birth, his orders were largely ignored by his Knights.

In the end the outcome of many battles is down to luck, by which I mean the chance collision of uncontrollable factors. To be a good simulation of warfare, a good wargame needs to reflect this. This applies to command and control, but also to troop performance. When committing his forces the general should know that unit x will defeat unit y 9 times out of 10, but also that unit y will be triumphant 1 in 10 times and, crucially, have no way of knowing if this is one of those times. Good generalship is often about gambling with the most favourable odds, not certainties.

It is worth remembering that real generals didn't do this for fun or as an attempt simply to prove their tactical skill. Mitsunari and Ieyasu were in contest for control of Japan. Sekigahara was about contesting the forces they could marshall. There was no use afterwards complaining that the rules were unfair.

Of course, making a wargame a realistic simulation of warfare is not the same thing as making it a good game. This is why some famous historical battles are better to wargame than others. It is also why most wargames tend to allow both players roughly equal forces or skew the victory conditions to make it a contest of skill. Historical Generals didn't fight for fun and wargamers don't play to contest the fate of nations. If Dreadfleet is a terrible game (and I mean if) then arguing that its realistic is no defence.

However, it is still worth considering that adding random elements to a wargame may make it more realistic, rather than less.

White Dwarf Retrospective - 145 January 1992

The front cover of White Dwarf 145 comes as something of a shock, the main logo has been displaced to make way for the logos of HeroQuest and Space Crusade. I have written about HeroQuest before and Space Crusade was its Warhammer 40,000 inspired equivalent, in which players took control of squads of Space Marines battling Orks. Chaos Space Marines and Chaos Androids (the fore-runners of the Necrons). This was White Dwarf's second special issue dedicated to these more mainstream board games (the first being 134). It seems like a smart piece of marketing. The prominent logos could entice younger fans of the game while existing Games Workshop players could expand the games with a wider range of miniatures.

The Space Crusade article is particular elaborate, featuring a five part campaign with rules for Genestealer Hybrids, Terminators and Librarians. Given that Space Crusade had no system for psychic powers, the inclusion of psychic power cards for all the marine players, albeit ones you have to cut out or photocopy, is particularly ambitious. On the down-side, to make full use of the rules you are going to need a lot of models. One mission requires you to replace all the Orks with Genestealer Hybrids. With that in mind, its hard to see who this is aimed. Younger players would have to buy a lot of new models to play the missions, while the only players likely to have the required miniatures already would probably have a copy of Space Hulk and play that instead.

The HeroQuest article is rather better in my view. It consists of a two part quest called the Eyes of Chaos. It is illustrated with some imposing pictures of metal Games Workshop Ogres, but was released hot on the heels of the HeroQuest expansion 'Against the Ogre Horde' which featured seven plastic Ogres, so plenty of existing players would have the necessary models. The only truly new character is a Bretonnian Knight on foot, not a particularly challenging character to proxy. In fact I gave the Eyes of Chaos a go at the time of its release, but never player the Space Crusade rules at all.

The Eyes of Chaos for HeroQuest

In a clever piece of synergy, the issue also contains a version of Eyes of Chaos for Advanced HeroQuest, Games Workshops more complex HeroQuest spin off. The latter may not have offered the straight forward fun of HeroQuest, but had a number of enjoyable features, including its random dungeon generator tables, and was well supported in White Dwarf.

and again for Advanced HeroQuest

Moving on from the HeroQuest and Space Crusade material, the issue also features an article on Dragon Masters. This was a slightly odd game, written by Ian Livingstone one of Games Workshop's co-founders who ultimately went on to found video games company Eidos. He had long since left Games Workshop by the time the game was released and it feels like a product of a much earlier time in the companies history.

A self contained board game in which players took on the roles of rival High Elf lords sending out armies to explore a map board, it had the rather interesting mechanic of counters that were placed in each space face down and flipped over when an army entered the space to show what they encountered. This article provides a series of new counters to expand the game. A nice stand alone expansion that sadly has the drawback that, in a time before downloads and scanners, the new counters would have stood out a mile next to the professional printed counter-parts from the main game.

New Counter rules for Dragon Master

The final article is a new army list for Tyranids in Warhammer 40,000. It says something about the way Games Workshop has developed as a marketing machine that this article is weirdly low key, almost an after-thought.

It does feature an intriguing new idea. The whole list is printed on cards, or rather on paper intended to be cut out or photo-copied and used as cards, with background and images on one side and rules on the other. I suspect this idea was inspired by the recently release 2nd edition Epic which also used card-based army selection to good effect. It certainly pre-dates the modern fad for card-supported miniature rules and it is intriguing to imagine a world with army card decks instead of books. They would have been easier to refer to mid game, if trickier to read and store, and also would have allowed the seemless introduction of new units. Sadly this was not to be and the idea was never used again.

Army Cards - an idea that never caught on

The army list itself is a bit of a hodge-podge seemingly put together from existing models with as few totally new elements as possible. Some elements will be familiar to modern players, even if the models have changed, Tyranid Warriors, Genestealers, Termagents and Carnifex (the last two called Hunter-slayers and Screamer-Killers). Also present are Genestealer Hybrids, brood brothers, the Patriarch and the Magus. In fact, there is enough Genestealer elements here to comfortably put together a Genestealer cult army without recourse to Tyranid specific elements at all. Then there is the rather odd inclusion of Squig hordes which are apparently Tyranid-modified Orks, Zoats, effectively armadillo centaurs imported from Warhammer 3rd edition, and Mind Slaves, really an excuse to import chaos space marines and others into the list.

So ultimately, a decidedly bitty army list and one that doesn't seem to have much of a coherent plan behind it, except, perhaps, to put together an army with as little recourse to new models as possible.

This was an unusual and slightly special issue, but we still haven't moved very far from the format of White Dwarf we have seen so far. The bulk of the magazine, and all the key articles, are new, experimental rules for a variety of games. Much of the magazine is black and white with a few colour pages only. However, although not readily apparent from this issue, Games Workshop was starting to change in a way that would seriously impact White Dwarf as we will begin to see from the next issue in our tour.

Startup Costs

In my last post I mentioned that I had bought some models for Bushido, from GCT games, a fantasy skirmish game set in a version of Medieval Japan.

Although by no means its strongest attraction, one element that drew me to it was its nicely constructed starter sets. As well as containing five or six models, it also included dice, cards and, tucked away at the back, a full set of rules. GCT games had already been handing out these small-sized rule books at the event so I came away with two copies. It was quite gratifying to see a skirmish game with a complete rule book included like this and it made me think of the late Rackham and Confrontation second edition.

Confrontation was Rackham's fantasy skirmish game, which was on to its second edition by the time it really started to make waves in the UK. This was also the time I started playing. At the time, Confrontations distribution method was highly original. Each blister back or box came with cards which contained all the rules for the models. This was a novelty at the time, miniature rules on cards were still a new thing, but Rackham took it to extremes by never printing the rules for the miniatures anywhere but on the cards, there were no Army Books until Rackham made its foray into pre-painted plastic. Also each blister came bundled with a mini-rulebook. Most models included Confrontation, the basic rules for moving and fighting, but Wizards and Clerics came with Divination and Incantation, which provided rules for magic and faith, artillery included Fortification and some characters Incarnation, which gave the rules for ongoing campaigns.

The great advantage of this approach was that you could buy a few blisters of models and be confident of having all the rules you needed to play. The points values of the models were printed on the cards, which were visible through the packaging, so you could even have a good idea of how many points you were getting.

Sadly, this all came to an end when third edition was released. Although, in many respects superior to its predecessor, the rules now came in a lushly produced hard back rulebook costing £15. The rules booklets that came with the figures were relegated to starter rules.

It has always surprised me that more games don't follow the Confrontation 2nd edition approach. Starter sets, like Bushido's, are common enough, but these generally come with 'starter rule' if any at all, with the bulk of the came relegated to a large, usually hardback, book.

As far as I can see, there are two principle motivations for producing a set of game rules. One is a belief in the rules themselves. That is to say, that the writer(s) have an excellent idea for an enjoyable game, or even a particular rules mechanic, or they see an area not well catered for by existing rules and produce a set to meet that need. This seems to be the main motivation behind a lot of historical rules writing, where the rule publishers are often different from the miniature makers, but also appears to be the case for many stand alone fantasy and sci-fi rules sets.

The other motivation, is to support a range of miniatures. In this case the miniature concept comes first, and the rules exist to justify the miniatures. That isn't to say that the rules are not well thought through or simply an after thought, but it is the miniatures that drive the game. Games Workshop have been open about this for years: the purpose of the rules is to sell miniatures. But I also suspect that it is true of a number of high concept fantasy and skirmish games, such as Malifaux, Helldorado and Infinity. In the case of Anima Tactics, I know that it is a spin off of an RPG and that the principle motivation behind the game was to create a miniature game set in that world.

When looking at this second motivation, it seems to me that a rule book simply represents a barrier to entry. If your goal is to get people buying miniatures and playing with them, then you want to minimise any additional start up costs. The great advantage of the Confrontation 2nd edition approach was that you could buy a few blisters packs and get started. If you have to buy a rulebook first, then that's money you can't spend on miniatures. Warhammer now requires a rule book and an army book meaning that the start up cost, before any miniatures are put down, is close to £70. But this is less noticeable in a mass battle game, where the number of miniatures required is large and you would expect to spend some time collecting before you can play a full sized game. With some skirmish games we have ended up in the bizarre situation where you can spend as much, or even more, on the rules than the miniatures. When a significant selling point of your game is that it is quick and easy to pick up and play, why do anything to slow it down?

It's possible that there is serious money to be made in rulebooks. I'm not really sure where to find data on this, but it may be that the cost of rulebooks provides a valuable supplement to the income of miniature companies. Though I do wonder if the profit is offset by the cost of potential players who never get into the game in the first place.

Another potential justification is the need for background material. While there are some games based on existing IP, the majority of Fantasy and Sci-Fi games are set in their own unique world. If you want customers to invest in the miniatures you need them to invest in the game world. If this is your goal, then pages of flavour text and illustrations is obviously likely to be of benefit. In this scenario, if you sell the players on the rulebook, you sell them on the game.

But while players may drawn into a game by its flavour text and imagery, we often want very different things during a game. Hundreds of pages of non-rules material can be a serious pain when you just want to look up the rules. Wyrd games seem to have realised that, hence their decision to release a background free 'rules manual' half the size of their full rulebook.

This is an area where I think GCT games have been very smart with Bushido. They have kept their background material and illustrations to a minimum within the rulebook, but put a considerable amount of material on their website. There are short stories and illustrations for every faction and, so far, they have seen frequent updates. They are not the first company to do this, Mantic has been trying it for one, but they seem to be doing a better job than most.

This was one area where Confrontation 2 fell down. The Rackham website was never as extensive as it might have been and players had to turn to Cry Havoc, their quarterly magazine, for more background information. Releasing a regular magazine is beyond the resources of most game companies, but updating a website is increasingly easy. With all that in mind, I am watching GCT with interest and wondering who else may follow their lead.

Colours at Newbury Racecourse - A Show Report

Before we start, apologies for the poor quality of the pictures. I forgot to take my regular camera so these were taken with my IPhone.

Colours, hosted by Newbury and Reading Wargames Society, has been always a show that I thought was too far away and too small to be worth the effort. This only goes to show my poor geography skills as I discovered earlier this year that it was only two short train journeys away and so, with My Little Brother in tow, I set out to see what it had to offer.

Colours certainly takes place at a slightly unusual venue. Rather than the more common school hall, convention centre of leisure complex it takes place at Newbury race course. Or rather one of the substantial hospitality buildings set up to watch the races. It certainly provides ample space, but in a building designed for height and view rather. The end effect is three long and thin floors. In fact it was rather like taking a conventional hall, slicing it in three and stacking the three bits on top of one another with quite a lot of stairs in between. This still left plenty of room for games and stands, but did leave a few rather squeezed. Simple Miniature games had inadvisedly brought an extra stand up display rack which meant getting to their stall was like squeezing down a narrow alley. Atmospheric, but not very convenient.

The Venue - in its rain-soaked glory

I had thought of Colours as medium-sized show, but that probably comes from comparison with Salute which is insanely massive. In fact it was quite big, with over 70 traders in attendance including plenty of familiar local faces but also a few bigger names like Warlord and West Wind. I was surprised not to see Mantic, as they had sent a stand to the much smaller Valhalla earlier in the year. But there was no shortage of their products on offer. In fact the bigger companies may have suffered on the day as they generally stick to official prices while stands all around undercut them. Why pay full price for Warlord miniatures when you can save a couple of pounds by walking to the stand next door?

The show format put the traders at bottom, working up to a level of half traders, half games and then to games, tournaments and the bring and buy, with a few exceptions for contrary traders putting on demo games, like West Wind showing off Mercs and GCT demoing Bushido (of which more below). I thought the layout worked quite well, allowing you to get your shopping out of the way before ascending a few (well quite a lot) stairs to play some games.

I went along with no fixed purchasing plans and allowed myself to get lost in the ranges on offer. GCT games and Bushido caught my eye. I had been vaguely aware of them from news items on TMP and TGN, but never paid very much attention. They were another fantasy skirmish game and I had plenty. Sadly a good display demonstrated that you can never have too many games and their fantasy take on Medieval Japan was an immediate draw. Both MLB and myself left satisfied with a starter pack each to try.

Gaming wise there was a good mix of Historical, Fantasy and Sci-Fi games and also of participation and demo games, though there seemed to be fewer quick 'pick up' games then I have seen at other shows. Many of the participation games seemed quite long runners requiring you to dedicate an hour or two of your time. Though perhaps this was more about timing and I simply missed the shorter games.

A few games caught my eye. Crooked Dice's 7TV demo looked impressive and quirky as always. 7TV uses the same basic engine as their previous Doctor Who miniature game, but with a theme based around cult TV shows and films from the 60s to the 80s, like the Avengers and James Bond at its camp height. The rules make reference to episodes and cast, rather than games and armies. It also has the advantage of needing no licence and so they can actually sell it, unlike the Doctor Who game which remains determinedly unofficial.

This set up saw a team of heroes face a villainous alliance in their lair in a dormant volcano (where else). Obviously a great deal of work had gone into the board, with the obligatory giant missile and the little yellow helicopter a particular highlight.

MLB and myself spent enjoyable hour with the RAF Wargames Association playing a Stargate themed games searching for missing scientists in an ancient Egyptian temple. The scenery for this came from a Playmobil set purchased on Ebay which shows that you don't need to spend ages on bespoke terrain to produce a good looking game.


A couple of other demo games stood out from the crowd. A stone age people hunting mammoths scenario by Lincombe Barn Wargames Society featured some striking mammoth models and well made fire templates. And I finally saw a game based around the opening scene of Gangs of New York by Maidenhead and District Gamers, something I have been wanting to see since I first saw the film.


On a side note, the food on offer was also slightly better than normal for a show of this size. Taking advantage of the Race course catering facilities there was a range of pasties and paninis, albeit with a long queue, and a licensed bar. Definitely a perk for some gamers, though as a non-drinker not so important for me.

Overall an enjoyable show with a good range of traders and games. My only regret being that I missed it in previous years.

Realms of Chaos Battle Report 2 - The Battle of Bogwurst

Having gathered a band of followers, Rolf made for the village of Bogwurst. He knew that the village was weakly defended and would be an ideal place to gather supplies. But as the warband approached the village, smouldering fire and the smell of blood revealed that Rolf was not the first to have this idea.

The village was abandoned, its population fled or killed. In the village square a band of drunken chaos thugs danced around a hastily constructed pyre, onto which a man in ragged robes had been tied. The Thugs danced around in a drunken frenzy. Even bound, gagged and helpless Rolf could sense the touch of chaos on their victim.

As Rolf considered his next move, a second band of chaos followers approached from the other side of the town. Five were men dressed in similar ragged robes to the sacrificial victims, five more were dwarves in armour, their leader carrying a large and ornate sword. Rolf made his decision, if this warband wanted this man, then clearly he was a prize worth taking.

Rolf ordered his warband to advance, quickly pushing past the drunken thugs who put up little resistance. From the other side, the enemy warband did the same. But as one of the thugs stumbled towards the lead dwarf he swung out his sword. As the sword touched the man there was a wailing hiss and his body shrivelled away to nothing. As if in response to his leader, one of the robed humans, who Rolf could now see had no skin on his face, stretched out a finger and let loose a bolt of lightning. Two more men collapsed in a pile of smoking ash.

Seeing that their rivals wielded magic, Rolf was daunted, but even more determined. He sent the Orcs to meet the lead dwarf, while the beastmen secured their captive. Rolf's warband reached the pyre first and the beastmen braved the flames to secure their prize. Rolf prepared himself to meet the ragged cultists, but then a second bolt of lightning leapt out and Rolf was struck down, his body crackling with energy.

With their leader fallen, the Beastmen and Orcs faltered, but the lead Beastmen, who carried Rolf's banner, bellowed a cry of defiance, hoisted his captive onto his shoulders and lead his comrades away. The Orcs braced themselves to receive the charge of the Dwarf champion. He launched himself forward his blade dancing, but the Orcs held out. However, when they struck back, they found their spear points deflected. His black skin was was harder than iron. Despite their resistance, the Orcs were slowly pushed back.

As the Beastmen retreated, the cultists saw their chance and attacked from the rear. But the beastmen disdainfully received their charge cutting down one of the cultists. Shocked by the strength of the resistance, the cultists panicked and fled. The Beastmen ignored them and marched on. The dwarves pursued, but were unable to keep pace. It seemed that Rolf's warband might claim victory after all. But then, the sorcerer hurled two more bolts of lightning and two beastmen fell. At the same time, the dwarf champion hacked through the leg of one Orc and skewered another on the point of his blade. Like the Chaos Thug before, the life was drained out of the Orc's body leaving an empty husk. Seeing the comrade subject to such a grizzly fate, the Orcs nerve gave and they fled.

The Beastman leader was not so easily bowed. Hoisting his captive he made a break for the trees at the edge of the village. Two more lightning bolts followed him, but the beastman was gone into the woods.

* * * * *

Rolf awoke to the sight of his beastman follower standing over him. It explained, in its guttural tone, that he had fled into the woods with his captive, that the rival warband had pursued but had been unable to find him. He had returned to the village and gathered up the scattered Orcs and beastmen. Despite being knocked out, the bolt of lightning had left Rolf scorched but unharmed. He gave a quiet prayer to his God for protecting him.

With his warband recovered Rolf turned his attention to his prisoner. The man was battered, but alive, but still gave Rolf a look of defiant hatred. Rolf was confused, but then he saw the twisting S shaped rune on the pendent around his neck. Somehow Rolf recognised it and hated it. Then his beastmen follower hissed a word “Tzeentch” with utter contempt and Rolf realised his prisoner was a champion of an rival God. Rolf smiled.

He tortured and killed his prisoner with sadistic glee and with a final contemptuous sneer, Rolf beheaded the man. The body fell and lay still. But then the body started to shake and convulse. Rolf stepped back as it exploded into a pile of offal and filth. Still it shook, rising up into a bloated, slug-like shape crowned by a mass of tentacles. The vile thing bounded forward toward Rolf. He backed away, but then the creature leaped towards him, licking him with its putrid Tongue like an affectionate hunting hound.

Preventing the rescue of a follower of Tzeentch was a worthy deed for a Champion of Nurgle, but to risk his life to capture and kill the champion himself had caught the attention of his God who had gifted him with one of his own Beasts. Rolf, as a champion, was quite unaffected by the creatures paralysing poisons. For his loyalty and dedication to his master his Beastman follower was rewarded with a tentacle arm like his master.

Gathering up his battered followers, Rolf made to leave Bogwurst, only to be disturbed by the lumbering arrival of a Dragon-Ogre, attracted by Sorcerer's lightning. Rolf readied himself for another fight, but the Dragon-Ogre, recognising a Chaos Champion, pledged himself to Rolf.

Casualties: 1 Orc killed, 1 serious leg injury.

Reward: Beast of Nurgle

Booty: None

Followers Reward: Chaos Attribute (Tentacle arm) for a Beastman

New Followers: 1 Dragon Ogre

* * * * *

This was my second battle using the Realms of Chaos rules against My Little Brother and we were each using our second warbands. This was not a prospect to which I was greatly looking forward, largely because MLB's other warband is crazy. He managed to roll up a Level 10 Chaos Dwarf Sorcerer and decided to make him a follower of Tzeentch. This gave him a randomly generated Magic item, which turned out to be Daemon Sword (it started out as having a Daemon Prince sealed inside it but we agreed this was going a bit far and down-graded it to a Pink Horror).

So far so overpowered, but worse was to come. Tzeentchian champions get D3 chaos attributes instead of 1, and MLB rolled 3. His first two were the harmlessly ineffective big ears and black skin, but he rolled metal body for his third, giving his champion a strength and toughness of 6 and AN IMMUNITY TO NON-MAGICAL WEAPONS! His Weapon Skill and Ballistic Skill were halved but this was largely compensated for by the Daemon Sword. Given that nothing in my warband could even hurt this guy this was not going to be an easy challenge.

With all that in mind, we settled on a scenario were I had a hope of achieving something. We selected a scenario from the Realms of Chaos: the Lost and the Damned book in which the two warbands have to compete to rescue a captured cultist coven leader from a band of drunken beastmen. I didn't have the beastmen to spare, but had no shortage of plastic chaos marauders, so we decided to substitute them. We decided that the coven leader was part of the same cult as MLB's cultists and so would be a Tzeentchian.

Unsurprisingly my warband was pretty badly massacred. But thanks to taking a more direct route to my goal I managed to get the coven leader first. Had it gone the other way I wouldn't have stood a chance of getting him off MLB's warband. My Beastmen performed stirlingly, surviving a rear charge, breaking the cultists and passing a leadership test so they weren't compelled to pursue (which would have taken them in the wrong direction). To cap it all, the standard bearer passed a panic test when two of his colleagues were taken out by lightning bolts from MLB's Cultist Magus and made it into the woods.

The Orcs also did well, given they were fighting an enemy they couldn't hurt. Poor old Rolf was the real loser, taken out without a fight and not even being able to claim the Victory Points for 'Surviving the Battle on the Winning side.'

Post battle I was extraordinarily lucky. Despite losing all but two of my warband I suffered only one fatality and one injury (an Orc with a severely injured leg who I may 'retire' as he will slow down the whole unit). Even Rolf escaped unscathed, gaining his first reward and a Dragon Ogre follower. Given his impressive performance winning the day, I had to pass my follower reward onto the beastman survivor. Now I just have to get my hands on a Beast of Nurgle.

White Dwarf Retrospective - 133 January 1991

My second look back on old White Dwarfs takes us to January of 1991 and WD 133. The front cover this time depicts the Blood Angels, lead by a ridiculously shiny gold armoured Captain, who would go on to be the inspiration for the special characters Commander Dante and Captain Tycho. Though not as popular as 121's cover, this image did do double duty as the front cover of the Warhammer 40,000 compilation (see here).

The overall feel of the magazine had not changed greatly in 12 months. We still have mostly two colour articles, largely focused on new rules with little over arching theme and little coverage of Warhammer Fantasy Battle. Though the exclusively rule-based articles of WD 121 have been supplemented here by a rather useful 'Modelling Workshop' article on Fences and hedge rows. Modelling workshop had been running for some months, but had been focused on larger or more elaborate projects like barns, cottages, ruined temples, etc. So an article on something more straightforward was very welcome. The end result is well illustrated and easy to follow. Definitely of use even to modern players.

A surprisingly large proportion of the rest of the issue is devoted to the rules for Mek-boys for the Space Ork army. Since the preview in WD 121 the Orks had received a considerable amount of new material, much of which would ultimately end up in their two supplement books "'Ere we Go" and "Freebooterz". Having printed an army list, vehicle rules and rules for most basic troop types, WD had turned its attention to more and more obscure rules. Given their current role within the Ork army, basic characters with access to slightly specialised equipment, the first edition rules for the Mek boys are remarkable, both in quantity and quality.

The article provides a set of malfunction cards that the opposing player can play on the Ork army to represents the unreliability of their equipment. Each Mekboy in the Ork army provides a mekboy card that can cancel out he malfunction. On the face of it this is a fun little 'game within a game' but when you consider that several different ork troop types had similar amounts of special rules you can imagine how complex playing an Ork army could be. The second part of the rules is devoted to the Shokk Attack gun, a weapon still around today that propels snotlings through Warp Space at the enemy. The rules include two large tables used to determine what happens when Snotlings appear inside vehicles or battle suits (such as Terminators) and the amount of detail given to each entry gives a good indication of how much fun the designers must have had designing these rules. For example:

It feels like the designers were a little out of control, creating rules that were great fun to write and read, but cumbersome to play. When you consider that Mek Boys are one small part of one army, and that other Ork units were given rules every bit as elaborate I imagine the fun would wear off quickly during an actual game. At the age of 11 I spent ages reading through the Ork rules, but rarely put them into practice in anything but the most basic way.

The next most substantial article is devoted to new metal parts for Epic Titans and serves as a good reminder of how Epic's status has declined from once being the third core game. The article had obviously been produced to coincide with the release of the new pieces, and shows that even in the early 1990s WD content could be dictated by the release of the month. That said, as marketing strategies go this is fairly half-arsed. The rules were never published anywhere else, leaving players without this issue scuppered (at least until the release of Epic 2nd edition only 8 months later).

Showing off the new metal Titan parts. The Orks look badly outgunned.

A few quick Space Hulk missions fill up some space and provide a little more usable content, but the most unusual element, to modern eyes, are the four pages devoted to special offer armies.

Two of them are for Warhammer Fantasy armies from Marauder miniatures. Three armies are on offer, Dark Elves, Orcs and Dwarves. At the other end of the magazine, there are two pages of special offers for 1,000 point Ork armies, six in total, one for each clan. These armies vary in price from £80 at most to as little as £30. What is striking is not only the dramatic price difference between then and now, but how much larger armies seem to have gotten. The Warhammer armies are all perfectly playable at 2,000 points each, but the Orc one, for example has only four infantry units of only 20 models each (2 of which are Goblins) and four war machines. Its hard to imagine White Dwarf presenting an army that size now, let alone selling it. The Dwarf and Dark Elf armies contain units of 10 models, barely viable now, while the Ork army uses mobs of 5 Orks. Part of the increasing cost of the Games Workshop hobby is not just more expensive models but the insistence on fielding more of them, an attitude reinforced in White Dwarf which now seems to operate a minimum army size of 3,000 points.


So, after White Dwarf 121, 133 is more of the same. Lots of rules, no coherent theme and some shockingly cheap armies. But, little did I know at the time, a price rise was on the horizon, the first of many, it will be interesting to see were we go in a years time.